1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to closure devices for covering an upper end of the conventional, generally rectangular, flexible cigarette package after the package has been opened to expose the upper end of at least some of the cigarettes contained therein and particularly to such devices which are adapted to coact with the original package in which the cigarettes are contained.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Many brands of cigarettes, perhaps the great majority, are sold in a generally rectangular yet flexible package often referred to in the art as a soft pack. Such a soft pack generally includes a foil inner wrapper, an indicia-bearing middle layer, and a transparent outer wrapper. It is a common practice to remove a portion of one end of the package so as to reveal an end of at least some of the cigarettes contained therein, thereby enabling the smoker to withdraw one or more cigarettes from the package. After several of the cigarettes have been withdrawn from the package, the package as a whole tends to lose the stiffness or body which it had initially, and as a result, the cigarettes remaining in the package have a tendency to become crushed or broken. Some of the tobacco filler will occassionally sift out of the ends of the cigarettes contained within the package, and further, the end of the cigarette exposed has a tendency to become soiled, thus rendering them unusable for the intended purpose of smoking.
Another common annoyance or problem experienced by cigarette smokers is the misplacing of the smoker's supply of matches intended to be used in lighting the cigarettes. This is particularly true with the use of the relatively compact packages of paper safety matches now extensively employed and commonly obtained at little or no cost to the smoker.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to overcome the foregoing difficulties by providing a protective closure for cigarette soft packs which includes a book-match retaining means. More specifically, a protective closure device is provided which is adapted to be received between various layers of the cigarette package to provide a covering over the opened end of the package, the closure including a means for maintaining a book of paper matches closely against the side of the cigarette pack, thereby leading to a compact arrangement in which the matches conveniently accompany the pack of cigarettes.
A number of prior art protective devices for packages of cigarettes are known to exist in the prior art. Examples of the prior art are to be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,758,406; 1,892,676; 1,917,427; 1,957,302; 2,222,743, 2,782,910; and 3,743,136.